


Hurt

by Anonymous



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, M/M, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, kind of creepy cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 00:10:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13938414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hurt was why Optimus kept coming back.





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> This has sort of a funny story behind it. But the short version is that this is based in an “original continuity” AU, if you will (think a hypothetical G1 reboot with its own universe), and I had to get a basic idea from it out. If that doesn’t make sense, you’ll see by the end.

Hurt.

There was no other word for it than sheer, raw _hurt_. A constant ache, a burn. It reached deep into him, rooting down, clawing in like a fever.  

It was what he felt, instead of hatred, when he thought of Megatron. All this time, all these millennia of brutal and unforgiving warfare, and all he had to show for it, instead of the hatred he _should_ have felt after everything Megatron had done— _dead world, dead bots, allmyfaultallmyfaultallmyfault_ —was that. Hurt. Empty and hollow.

It was the only real constant in him after all this time. At this point, it was almost comforting. It first crept up on him in a moment on the desolate, empty wasteland of what used to be Cybertron, when he looked back and saw the proof of what he and Megatron had done to it, and it’d hung on like a burr ever since.    

That was what he used to justify why he kept going back to it. It was all he really had left of him since the start of the war—of what he used to be.

Of what _they_ used to be.

“You’re making that face again.”

Optimus blinked slowly, keeping his gaze fixated on the sky above. There were no stars tonight, only dark clouds and the faint hint of a moon. He didn’t bother to look to his side, already knowing what he’d see. “I tend to make a lot of faces,” he replied dryly.    

There was a humorless chuckle. “Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Prime,” Megatron deadpanned, his voice almost a sneer. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

“You’d know all about lying, wouldn’t you?” Optimus muttered. He glanced at him out of the corner of his optics this time. In the dark, Megatron’s optics were even narrower red slits than usual.

“Don’t try to distract me.” He shifted forward, closer to the point of curling in on him from where they lay on the ground, and Optimus had to repress the contradictory urges to both move closer and pull away. “You were thinking. Brooding about freedom again, I presume?”

“What I think or brood about isn’t relevant to this,” Optimus answered stiffly. _This_ was really all he could call it, he thought grimly at his involuntary shift that increased the soreness between his legs. The trickle of transfluid and lubricant continued to drip, leaving a mess that he was still ignoring in favor of memorizing the sky and pretending he hadn’t done this again.

 _Again._ It was a cycle where he never learned his lesson, even from the burn in his cables and ache in his valve. Nausea roiled in his fuel tanks, and he ignored that too.

“On the contrary,” Megatron rumbled into his audial, and he hated the involuntary shiver that shot through his circuits at the sound, _“everything_ you think or brood about is something I should know. If you have something to say, say it.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” Optimus ground out, letting actual agitation into his voice. He moved this time, practically rolling over onto his side—but of course, Megatron’s servo had to stop him, grabbing hold of his chin and forcibly tilting his helm back towards him.

“Look at me.” It was almost a snarl, not enough anger to be fully there yet. But it was fully an order, not a request—and Optimus thought, maybe, he could hear a plea in it too, if he concentrated on that and not on Megatron’s cold red optics piercing down into him, searing and unreadable.

For a moment, there was only pure silence—even their cooling fans had both long clicked off. Absently, Megatron’s thumb came up to caress where his intake would be if it weren’t for his battle mask being in place over it, hiding it _(protecting it)_.      

“Pity that you always keep this on now,” Megatron murmured, more to himself than to him. “You look so much better without it.”

“Compliments won’t get you anywhere, Megatron.” It was moments like this that kept Optimus from taking his mask for granted. In a strange way, it was his shield—the one thing that kept him from completely coming undone, even in his lowest moments like this. It was odd—almost _funny_ —that he’d lie down and spread his legs and let Megatron have his way with him, let himself be used and fragged into an exhausted and hurting heap, yet never retract his mask the whole time.

He supposed the mask was his last semblance of dignity in that sense.

Megatron simply made a low, faintly disapproving “hm”, tapping his fingers briefly against the mask, and for one wild moment Optimus imagined him tearing it off. Instead, the warlord settled for pulling him in closer, palming the back of Optimus’s helm to nestle it against the crook of his neck, wrapping his arms around him.

He wanted to pull away. He had to pull away. But the press of his helm against such a vulnerable area, the sheer warmth of Megatron’s frame against his, the utter _closeness_ that could be real affection if Optimus pretended for a moment—it made that hurt flare again, raw like a reopened wound. And he gave in, again.

It was a temporary respite for longer lasting guilt, guilt that would translate back to _hurt_ and then start the whole thing over again. It was a never-ending cycle and Optimus fell for it every time, back into Megatron’s arms.

 _Where you belong,_ a traitorous thought would murmur from some dark corner of his processor, right before he pushed it back down and pretended it wasn’t there.

“I’m not doing this anymore,” Optimus whispered, briefly shuttering his optics. “This is the last time.”

Megatron only caressed the crest of his helm with a servo, tweaking a finial. “That’s what you said last time,” he replied silkily, sounding almost smug. “And the time before that.”

“This _is_ the last time, Dion.” The name came out without thinking, a slip of the glossa in a flare of anger—but whether it was at himself or at Megatron, Optimus couldn’t tell anymore. Beneath him, he felt Megatron stiffen.

“Don’t you dare.” His voice was soft, much softer than it’d been all night, but the bitter snarl in it was loud and clear. His grip tightened, threatening to crush. “You know that name means nothing anymore.”

Optimus managed his first smile of the whole night this time, even if it was cold and thin behind his mask. It nearly made him wish Megatron could see it. “Of course.”

They lay there in the darkness on the hidden hill slope, without another word, for a moment that felt like orns. At last, slowly and painfully, Optimus extracted himself from Megatron’s grasp. He wiped away the residue from his inner thighs with a grimace before he stood, almost staggering to his pedes. Megatron let him go surprisingly easily this time, watching him balefully as he did.

“I won’t come back.” Even as the words left his vocalizer, hard and cold, Optimus knew he was only trying to fool himself.

The corner of Megatron’s lip plate curled into a smirk. “Whatever helps you recharge, Prime.”

Optimus turned away, ignoring the renewed roiling in his fuel tanks as he transformed and set out without a glance back. He wouldn’t think about it. Megatron had taunted him about this more than once, sneered into his audials about taking him in front of his Autobots and showing them what their Prime really was, all while thrusting into him and making him shudder and writhe. There was never an afterglow once it was done, never warmth. There was only silence, and _hurt—_

But if this only exacerbated that hurt, that guilt, why did either of them keep coming back? Why did _he_ keep coming back?

Optimus had no answer to that. He’d come back, like he always did. And he’d run this thought process with no answer, like he always did.

Like he always would.


End file.
